Tag: Catholic Hierarchy

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The Monsignor Who Took Money From the Poor and Binged on Ecstasy and Champagne

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

 

Rev. Pietro Vittorielli
Rev. Pietro Vittorielli

Italian officials say Rev. Pietro Vittorielli stashed church donations for the poor in an account that paid for ecstasy-fueled Rio trip, oysters in London, and a Ralph Lauren wardrobe.

At least it is safe to assume that is the case with Monsignor Pietro Vittorelli, the head of Roman Catholic Benedictine abbey of Montecassino, which was made famous when it was destroyed in Allied bombing in World War II when Britain and the U.S. destroyed it in search of Germans who were thought to be hiding there. The abbey was rebuilt, but the hillsides nearby are dotted with the graves of fallen soldiers.

Vittorelli, who gave up his post at the abbey in 2013, was arrested this week on suspicion of siphoning off nearly $540,000 that was donated under Italy’s “Eight per Thousand” tax break, whereby kind-hearted people donate 8 percent of their income to a religious institution. The funds are an oft-used tax break for Italians and almost always go to Catholic entities.

Instead of reaching the poor, the funds that Vittorelli was supposed to distribute to worthy church-sponsored causes ended up in his personal Italian bank accounts, transferred from the Institute for Religious Works, otherwise known as the Vatican Bank. From those personal accounts, Vittorelli paid a personal credit card on which he charged luxury hotels and expensive meals from Brazil to the U.K., according to Italian investigators.

One entry in his credit-card statement included in the criminal dossier against him was for a $7,000 hotel bill in London, which included room service and hotel meals consisting of oysters and Champagne. On that trip, he is alleged to have spent $740 on one meal alone and more than $1,800 on designer duds from Ralph Lauren.

Another charge shows an extravagant holiday in Rio in 2010 on church funds, where, according to testimony by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza to Judge Virna Passamonti, he paid cash for ecstasy tablets he shared with a variety of suspicious friends.

In one month alone, the partying priest spent $34,800.  The other months he averaged expenses around $5,000.

He also owned four apartments in Rome and two storage facilities, which police claim he rented out as part of an intricate money-laundering scheme to keep the embezzlement hidden. Police say he enlisted his brother Massimo, a financial consultant who allegedly shared the wealth and the keys to safe deposit box No. 236 at Deutsche Bank in Rome. His brother would apparently stash cash that was withdrawn from the abbey’s Vatican Bank account in the secret deposit box until it was safe to deposit it in personal accounts without raising suspicion over having both transactions in the same bank statement period. “The sequence of operations unequivocally proves the intent to hide the path of the sums withdrawn from the accounts of the abbey,” Judge Passamonti wrote in her arrest warrant. “The examination of the financial flows directly documents the accurate operating systems meant to defraud.”

Italian police confiscated property, computers, and belongings found in all of the residences tied to the Vittorelli brothers.

Vittorelli left his post at Montecassino in 2013, citing health problems, and retired in Rome on his substantial, albeit ill-begotten, savings. In 2014, an organization hired by the Vatican Bank to audit its books discovered the money trail and started unraveling the fraudulent behavior that apparently began in 2008.

The latest scandal comes on the heels of two recent books published by Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who were fed by Italian laywoman Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui and Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, who were on a panel meant to clean up the Vatican Bank’s messy accounting system that has been long embroiled in scandals ranging from money laundering to ties to organized crime. Both journalists are under investigation by Vatican authorities, but the Vatican has no jurisdiction to make arrests outside its fortified walls. Vittorelli, however, will join Vallejo Balda in the Vatican jail while both await trial.

Pope Francis has not commented specifically on the latest scandal, but this week he alluded to the problems in Rome. “God save the Italian Church from any form of power, image, and money,” he said on a visit to Florence.  “I prefer a church that is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.“

Francis will embark on a five-day apostolic voyage to Africa on Nov. 25 before returning to Rome to open the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 8 to kick off the Jubilee year of mercy.

Complete Article HERE!

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Exclusive: Vatican Meets with U.S. State Department’s Gay and Lesbian Envoy

By Elizabeth Dias

A symbolic meeting to open a controversial dialog

VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - NOVEMBER 11: Pope Francis leaves St. Peter's Square after his weekly audience at The Vatican on November 11, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican. During the event, the Pontiff continued his catechesis on the family, focussing on togetherness and solidarity which extends as "a sign of God's universal love" . (Photo by Giulio Origlia/Getty Images)
Pope Francis leaves St. Peter’s Square after his weekly audience at The Vatican on November 11, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican. During the event, the Pontiff continued his catechesis on the family, focussing on togetherness and solidarity which extends as “a sign of God’s universal love” .

 

The encounter took place in a non-descript room at the Vatican, and conversation stuck to regular diplomatic briefs. But for the parties involved on Tuesday morning, the meeting held historic significance: Randy Berry, the first-ever U.S. Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI persons, and Vatican officials from the Holy See’s Secretary of State office were meeting for the first time.

The moment, simple as it was, marked a new level of U.S. engagement with the Catholic Church on LGBT human rights issues. Berry told TIME he met with officials for about an hour, and he met separately with representatives from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. For both sides, the conversations were new.

President Barack Obama only created Berry’s position at the State Department in April, and until now, Berry has primarily only talked with faith leaders in the field, as he has traveled to 30 countries in the last seven months. He met with evangelical congregations in Jamaica when he visited in May, for example. Conversations about LGBT human rights have never before reached this level with the Catholic Church, which considers gay and lesbian sexual behavior a sin and restricts marriage to unions of one man and one woman.

Berry’s focus however is not on marriage, but on the twin foreign policy issues of violence and discrimination. That strategy, Berry hopes, allows for common ground with the Vatican to stand together against extreme violence. “We were not there to talk about issues of civil unions or same sex marriage, for example, because that is not part of our policy,” Berry says. “That is not part of the conversation we were interested in engaging in, nor do I think were they.”

Berry requested the Vatican meeting as part of his three-week trip to Eastern Europe, which has included visits to five countries and a stop in Athens for the annual conference for ILGA, an international lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex rights association. Church officials accepted. “I wanted a chance to brief Vatican officials myself,” Berry says. “These issues of violence and extreme discrimination are of concern to us all.”

The meeting is particularly noteworthy ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Uganda at the end of the month, where homosexuality is illegal. When Uganda introduced a law last year that further criminalized homosexuality with extensive prison sentences, Western powers including the U.S. pushed back, while local Catholic leaders had mixed responses. Courts eventually struck the measure down, but hundreds of gay Ugandans have since fled to Kenya, where homosexuality is also illegal and where Pope Francis also plans a visit during his trip to central Africa.

Berry says he spent time in “listening mode” to learn from officials about how Pope Francis engages on human rights issues when he travels. He remembers how a gay rights activist was included when a large group of political activists met with Pope Francis in Paraguay this summer. “That inclusive approach speaks volumes,” Berry says. “I would hope that certainly those same messages are shared, and I fully expect that they will be because I think they are completely consistent with what we’ve seen from His Holiness in the past.”

The fact that the meeting even happened is revealing. It is a sign that the Obama administration sees future opportunity to work with the Vatican after the Pope’s September visit, with the possibility to build on the partnership they have strengthened on climate change and migration. It is also a sign that Vatican diplomatic efforts are willing to take certain amount of risk by talking with the U.S. on this issue, as any LGBT issues thrusts the Church into an often conflicted spotlight. Pope Francis has continued to advocate dialogue and listening to a range of perspectives even as he has ramped up the Vatican’s diplomatic activism, and the U.S. State Department continues to take note and look for opportunities to engage.

Discussion of any concrete collaboration with the Vatican would be premature, however. For now, Berry hopes to further common ground and expand contacts for future conversations. “It was an important first dialogue and I hope that we will continue,” Berry says. “I get to do a lot of really amazing things in this job,” he continues. “It was quite a positive experience.”

Complete Article HERE!

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US bishops advise dioceses how to deal with ‘Spotlight’ movie

File under:  PR Before Contrition

 
The Church wants clergy to be ready to help those for whom the film triggers painful memories

Archbishop-Kurtz-Spotlight
Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, left, with New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan in Rome in 2012. The US bishops have issued guidelines to help dioceses respond to questions about the “Spotlight” movie on clergy sexual abuse.

By Lisa Wangsness

Roman Catholic Church leaders in the United States have sent talking points to dioceses around the country to help them prepare for the release of the movie “Spotlight,” highlighting the progress the Church says it has made in preventing and responding to the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops drew up the guidance and statistics in September in anticipation of the movie’s release, said Don Clemmer, a spokesman for the bishops. He said Church leaders wanted dioceses to be ready to speak to victims who experienced pain with the release of the movie, and to show them — and the wider public — that the Church has changed.

Letters from bishops and stories in diocesan newspapers issued in recent days endeavor to portray a Church dramatically — and permanently — transformed by the abuse crisis since The Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation of clergy abuse and the coverup by Church hierarchy. The film chronicles that Globe investigation.

In their public responses so far, the bishops reiterate apologies to victims and in some cases offer phone numbers they can call to seek counseling or report abuse. They also detail abuse prevention efforts, renew vows to immediately report abuse complaints to civil authorities, and highlight the American Church’s zero-tolerance policy that mandates the removal of predators from the Church.

“I can tell you unequivocally that anything that raises awareness of the crime of sexual abuse of minors and encourages transparency is a good thing,” Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of Albany, N.Y., said in a statement. “I certainly hope ‘Spotlight’ will be a vehicle to communicate the truth and advance the dialogue regarding the protection of children.”

The diocesan newspaper in Orange County, Calif., hinted at the daunting scale of the task for the Church: In that diocese in 2014, it reported, 244 priests, 108 deacons, 1,741 teachers, and more than 27,550 school employees and volunteers underwent training to help prevent abuse, and nearly 55,000 children participated in “safe environment” education.

Because the movie will not open nationwide until Nov. 20, most bishops in the United States have not seen it. The film began showing in Boston and a few other cities last Friday.

“Spotlight” ends with a long list of dioceses in the United States and around the world where similar coverups of clergy sexual abuse of children came to light after the Globe’s revelations about the Archdiocese of Boston. A recent report by the National Catholic Reporter found that clergy abuse — which the Church once silenced by settling with victims and swearing them to secrecy — has cost the Catholic Church in America $4 billion since 1950 in settlements, therapy for victims, and other costs.

“In our experience, Catholics and others will take the movie as proof of what is happening today, not what happened in the past,” the “Spotlight Resources” memo from the bishops group said. “Do not let past events discourage you. This is an opportunity to raise the awareness of all that has been done to prevent child sexual abuse in the church.”

Clemmer said the memo was sent to “safe environment” coordinators in each diocese, who oversee diocesan programs and policies to prevent abuse. The aim was to prepare prelates and Church workers to help those for whom the film triggers painful memories, particularly victims who have never come forward before, he said.

“Anybody who comes forward should know that the Church is ready to accompany them,” Clemmer said. “It’s a spirit of gratitude for people who have the courage to come forward, and who make the Church and children safer.”

In late October, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and a top adviser to Pope Francis on clergy sexual abuse policy, was among the first to issue a statement on the movie. He said the Church must continue to seek forgiveness from victims and to make amends. Terrence C. Donilon, a spokesman for O’Malley, said the cardinal wrote the statement himself and it was not issued as part of a coordinated campaign.

The advisory memo from the Conference of Catholic Bishops counsels dioceses to acknowledge the Church’s wrongdoing, as well as the role of journalists and victims in helping to uncover its harboring of pedophile priests. Bishops, it said, should “be open and transparent” about any abuse in their dioceses.

And it urges them to describe the policy changes that the American Church implemented after the scandal, including requirements that clergy, staff, seminarians, and volunteers working with children undergo background checks and safe environment training, and that children be educated on the issue.

“Remain vigilant,” the memo adds. “This is a reminder we cannot afford to become complacent.”

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But Terence McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org, an organization that tracks the abuse crisis, said the bishops have failed to fully address issues related to the abuse crisis that remain unresolved.

For example, he said, the bishops could have agreed to make lists of abusive priests available nationwide. Only about 30 of the 178 dioceses have done so, he said. Boston is one that has provided a list, although advocates complain it is incomplete. More than 2,400 abusive priests nationwide have never been named, he said, and it is impossible to know how many are still living.

“In a way, the movie is all about that issue: Who are these men who have done these things, how many are there, what are their names? Where have they worked? What have they done? It’s all about making a list,” he said. “I think it’s such an obvious thing to address for the bishops, especially those who haven’t made a list yet.”

He said the bishops should have acknowledged some of the more notable failures to enforce the Church’s new zero-tolerance protocols — in Kansas City, Mo., and Minneapolis, for example — and suggest ways the Church could do better.

One bishop who explicitly spoke of the Church’s efforts as a work-in-progress, rather than a closed chapter in history, was Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa. He posted a statement on the diocesan website that was remarkable for its bluntness.

“Would I prefer that this not be played out on the silver screen? Sure. The trailer alone is painful to watch,” he wrote. “But that pain I am sure doesn’t even come close to what victims, their families, or the Catholic faithful have to suffer from the scandal of clergy sexual abuse.”

He continued, saying that even though failing to report or remove an offender is rare compared with past practice, “it too still happens, and when it does, a shadow is cast on the church’s efforts to restore trust and to provide a safe environment.

“And so I suppose the story told by the movie bears repeating until all of us get all of it right.”

Complete Article HERE!

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The synod, before and after

The synod on the family was closed before having been initiated. The possibility of a serious discussion with respect to homosexual people was already eliminated in the time of its preparation, when the church was not even able to scientifically verify its own false language: today it goes on – in an ideological way – speaking about “tendencies” instead of “sexual orientation” of human people. In the preparation of the synod, Church has ridiculed and eliminated the homosexual question, deceiving the expectations of humanity for a serious and respectful discussion of the experience of humanity and the scientific knowledge related to the persons belonging to non-heterosexual minorities and their family life, their life of love.

synod headsThe synod doesn’t have “laying closed hearts, which bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families” (Francis, Conclusion of the Synod of Bishops, 24.10.2015). On homosexual persons, on their families and children the synod has produced only a homophobic closing of the reason and the heart. The synod has been incapable of reading the reality of homosexual people and considering them in their human dignity and in their aspirations of love. Such people are only considered inside their own families, almost as they were immature people who require a special care from the other members of the family, all of that behind the dishonest and insensitive “respect”. Without any indication for the life of homosexual people, the synod has only repeated the worst of the documents of the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith: “between the homosexual unions and the God’s plan for marriage and family doesn’t exist remote analogy”. Such repetition is shameful and offensive to the reality of the homosexual and lesbian families, and to their happy children. One wonders if for living according to the wish of synod this persons should get rid of their families and children. Behind the conclusions of the synod dangerous antihuman insinuations can be glimpsed, inciting to arouse sense of guilty and inferiority, of complex and negativity between children and their homosexual fathers or their lesbian mothers. The position of the Congregation repeated by the synod is the offense to the reason, to the human reality and to the Christian sensibility taught by Jesus. It is not the humble discernment of the reality, wished by the Pope Francis. It is an ignorant abuse of the spiritual power of Church.Krzysztof_Charamsa

The lack of sensitivity of Jesus in the synod is a deplorable and particularly serious irresponsibility of Catholic Church. For years I have experimented this irrational multilevel closing of Church. I have experimented the sabotage of the pontificate and Pope Francis’ synods by the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith, where I worked. This way, at the beginning of the synod, with priestly passion, I had asked in my letter to Pope Francis to take seriously in consideration the dignity of homosexual people, of their families and their children. I considered that the Pope is the only person that can stop the absurdity of the retrograde impositions. Today I make public my letter (the next post), taking note of the insensibility and the hateful refusal of persons belonging to sexual minorities. That synod, in mouth of a Father of Synod, has only known to compare homosexual people to the Nazi and to the enemies of humanity. In civil societies such offenses should be denounced: they are defamatory and they arouse hate homophobic hate. The silence of Church on that subject is embarrassing.

Krzysztof Charamsa
Barcelona, 29/10/2015.

Complete Article HERE!

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Jury Awards Plaintiff $8.1 Million in Duluth Clergy Abuse Case

By Virginia Carter

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary

The jury attributed 60 percent fault to the Diocese of Duluth and the other 40 percent to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a religious order based in St. Paul. The victim testified that he was molested by the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald for two weeks and that church officials failed to adequately supervise the priest, leading to the sex assault. It’s the first such case to go to trial under Minnesota’s Child Victims Act, which temporarily lifted the statute of limitations to allow victims to sue for sexual abuse which occurred decades ago. The award was less than the $11.7 million Weis had been seeking.

Attorneys said it was the first lawsuit to go to trial under Minnesota’s Child Victims Act, passed in 2013. That law opened a three-year window to file claims for older incidents of abuse.

In 1978, he traveled to the St. Catherine Parish in Squaw Lake, Minn., part of the Diocese of Duluth. It’s rare for a clergy sexual abuse case to actually reach a jury verdict. Anderson had asked jurors in his closing arguments Tuesday to find the diocese 90 percent responsible and the Oblates 10 percent responsible.

Diocese attorney Susan Gaertner declined to comment after the verdicts were read. They awarded Doe 30 $8.1 million for pain, suffering, loss of earnings and future medical costs. Fitzgerald, who worked at six parishes within the Diocese of Duluth between 1957 and 1983, died in 2009. “Through coming forward and standing up to them and taking this case to trial, that whole process was transformative for this survivor”, Finnegan said. “I think this verdict sends a clear message that juries are not going to stand still anymore and sympathize with the church”.

Anderson said he expects the diocese to appeal the verdicts and challenge the monetary award. Law experts say this verdict sets an important precedent for the hundreds of abuse cases that are pending right now against the Archdioses of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and other diocese in Minnesota. Wednesday, he said that he supported the jurors’ findings. “The reality is that the diocese has limited resources”, she said.

Complete Article HERE!